Missing the mark on gender equality: Governments don’t do enough to ensure womxn’s rights to social protection and public services

Written on 01 May 2019.

A Joint response from trade unions, and feminist, womxn’s rights and social justice organisations to the CSW63 Agreed Conclusions 

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Public services and social protections key to migrant women’s rights

Written on 08 March 2019.

Statement by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women on the occasion of International Women’s Day and ahead of the 63^rd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women

The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women calls on states to increase their investment in public services and social protections as a way to prevent human trafficking and protect the rights of migrant and trafficked women.

Migrant and trafficked women cite the absence of social protection systems as key in their decisions to migrate, regardless of the risk. This distress migration enables a supply of workers in precarious labour sectors, such as the domestic and garment work, which do not enjoy basic protections and increases the risks of trafficking and exploitation.

In destination countries, migrant workers, particularly women domestic and care workers, are often employed to fill gaps in social protection and services, where economic pressures and austerity measures have increased the unpaid care burden on women. In some countries, migrant workers have been recruited to meet longstanding recruitment problems, and make up large sectors of the workforce particularly in health and education.

In origin countries, women migrant workers play a crucial role in compensating for the underfunding or absence of public services. Their remittances are used to clothe, feed, house and educate their families.

Despite playing an outsized, and trans-boundary role in social protection, migrant women are also among the groups least able to access services and social protection. Access to public services and social protection systems are key to the fulfilment of the rights of migrant women, and to preventing trafficking but progress is threatened by budget cuts and austerity measures that have resulted in the privatisation of public services and increased user fees.

Austerity measures, including the underfunding of public services, have a detrimental impact on the ability to prevent, detect and respond to cases of trafficking. Given their role in victim identification, it is critical that public service providers, including labour inspection, law enforcement, immigration, health and social service providers have resources to identify and assist potential trafficked persons. 

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Irregular migrants, refugees or trafficked persons? Challenging rigid categorisations and their impact on migrants’ lives

Written on 06 December 2018.

Irregular migrants, refugees or trafficked persons? Challenging rigid categorisations and their impact on migrants’ lives

8 December 2018, 15:30 – 17:30, Room Atlas 2, Palmeraie Golf Palace, Marrakech

Organisers: Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, OHCHR and UNHCR

This event will present the findings of the articles published in the above-mentioned journal and contribute to a conversation about the categories assigned by states to people on the move, the impact of these categories on migrants’ lives, and how the global compacts for refugees and for migration can support efforts to protect the rights of all people on the move.

Categorising Migrants: Standards, complexities, and politics

Written on 04 November 2018.

Launch of Issue 11 of Anti-Trafficking Review ‘Irregular Migrants, Refugees or Trafficked Persons?’

Guest Editors: Claus K. Meyer and Sebastian Boll

Editor: Borislav Gerasimov

International migration has become a ‘mega trend’ of our times, with more than 260 million migrants living outside their country of origin in 2017. Some people move in search of better livelihood opportunities, others flee conflict, environmental degradation or natural disasters, and yet others are deceived or coerced into exploitative work. At the same time, the categories developed by the international community for people on the move—such as smuggled migrants, refugees, or trafficked persons—are increasingly inadequate to capture today’s complex migration flows. Yet the label that a person is given by authorities can mean the difference between assistance and protection, or arrest and deportation. 

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